Archos has been a player in the PMP market for a few centuries now (a rough estimate, anyway), and to say that the universe was jazzed at the mere thought of a 7-inch tablet for under $200 would be understating things dramatically. We found more things wrong with the Archos 7 Home Tablet than we could’ve ever imagined going in, but still, for under two C-notes, we have to believe that a few of you flipped on the blinders and made the purchase anyway. For those in that camp, we’re interesting to find how you feel about it now. Is the size right? Is the OS as impressive as you thought it would be? Are you longing for a larger display? Imagine you had the keys to Archos’ design lab and had the power to overhaul this bad boy, then have a sip of your favorite fruit juice and drop your thoughts in comments below. In that order, por favor.

Upon first look is there anything not to love about the Archos 7 Home Tablet? It’s .5-inches thick, has a seven-inch touchscreen, runs Android, and wait for it…only costs $199. It’s all sounded pretty great to us since its CeBIT unveil, but then small, yet saddening details began to emerge about the device: it has a resistive touchscreen, lacks an accelerometer, and doesn’t have access to the Android Market — and worst of all, it runs Android 1.5. Sure, you get what you pay for, but can the Archos 7 rise above those shortcomings and persuade us to dig $199 out of our piggy banks? We’ve spent the last week with the tablet, so you’ll just have to click on to find out.

Why hello there, Archos. My, what nice Android you have there. Tucked away in a little booth at CeBIT, the PMP maker was showcasing its latest 7-inch Home Tablet. Unfortunately, it was pretty barebones as far as content goes, but the vanilla Android 1.6 was running smooth, and if company precedence indicates anything, the video playback is still fairly solid. The selling point here, really, is a decent screen and that $200 or so price tag. No dice on espying Archos 8, though; we’ve passed by the company’s booth twice now, and both times it had yet to be sent to the show floor. Instead, on hand were the A14VG and AV15VS, but there isn’t a lot to say about music players with the same feature set you’d find in PMPs sold at grocery stores — there’s definitely a market, but it’s targeted at your wallet more than your desire for cutting edge goods. Video of Archos 7 after the break.

Archos has just announced its brand new 7- and 8-inch Home Tablets, which both run Android and cost €149 ($203). For that layout, you’ll get a 600MHz ARM 9 processor, which won’t be breaking any (positive) records, but the Archos 7 you see above is a very svelte 12mm thin and weighs only 350g, making it an ideal web reading device if not a particularly potent multimedia consumer. You also get WiFi, 2GB of integrated memory on the cheaper versions and a battery that will last for seven hours of video or 44 hours of audio playback. The Archos 8 (pictured after the break) comes with a huge old bezel, hinting at its ability to double up as a picture frame, while sharing the 7′s other features, including price and thickness. The smaller device will be coming out in Europe this April, to be followed by its larger sibling in May.